Camaro body tutorial

Start by drawing a spline from the front edge of the fender to the back edge of the door like below.. In this case our 2d sketch is on the Right plane while our curve never intersects th

2010 Camaro Body Tutorial

First a little info about this tutorial This tutorial assumes you know the basics of modeling as well as your way around SolidWorks It is best that you have some surfacing experience and understand what each of the surfacing tools do before you tackle a project like this

Understanding basic sketching principles, the how and why of sketch relations and the use of projected curves is a must and will not be covered in detail here Don’t expect to be a surfacing expert by completing this tutorial It’s more of a procedural guide on the approach to modeling

a car body since it seems to be one of the harder topics This is the first time I have drawn this car and I will be writing this document every step of the way so any mistakes or errors we encounter are actual problems I run across during the model Also this is only the third car I have modeled in SolidWorks and the fourth car overall so I am still learning myself Good Luck The first step to modeling anything based on a current product is obtaining as many photos (or the real object) as you can When modeling a car it is essential that you have a good set of blueprints You need

to have a side, front, back and top view If you don’t there will be a lot of guess work involved and your job will be that much harder You can work off of photos, but there will be perspective that will throw things off if you aren’t aware of it If you are designing a part based on artist sketches it is also

important that you have these reference prints to work off

Before you get started there is a nice feature called Auto-Trace within the sketch picture While this won’t really help you out with the car, if you have a nice high contrast sketch of a consumer product it may be just what you need Auto-trace can be turned on from the Tools>add-ins menu It will appear within the sketch picture dialog, but I am not going to go into that here Just be aware of it and play around with how it works because it might come in handy one day

The first step in the actual modeling process is laying out your blueprints Make sure you use your standard planes and take the opportunity to rename the sketches for your own benefit later Drawing something like a car will leave your feature tree a mess so take any chance you can to make folders and name sketches or features Especially if you have to roll back the end of part marker or make

adjustments This is also helpful if someone else needs to work with your model

Setting up Blueprints

Start a sketch on the Right Plane You will want to use the Sketch Picture button to add your Right blueprint image If the Sketch Picture button isn’t on your Sketch tab you can add it by right clicking on the sketch ribbon somewhere, customize and add it Also you can go up to the Tools menu, Sketch Tools>Sketch Picture Setting up these blueprint images so they line up is extremely important to the quality of your model If each image has a different scale or border you will need to ensure they are lined up These Camaro blueprints are pretty good but others may not be Make note of the

transparency option in the Sketch Picture dialog I prefer to leave the picture backgrounds as is but you can alter them It’s really a personal preference The Right image will be placed automatically but you can move it while the Sketch Picture dialog is open I like to leave the bottom left corner of the picture

at the origin Also note while you are in the Sketch Picture dialog that 6 handles will appear around the border of your image These handles will stretch the image so be careful you don’t grab them OK the sketch picture and exit the sketch

Start a sketch on the Front Plane and follow the same procedure for adding the Front Blueprint image

My preference is to move this image so that it is centered on the origin This allows me to mirror

surfaces across the Right Plane later on in the process Be very careful not to stretch/scale the image as you move it Since we are not exactly replicating the car getting it close will be just fine

Follow this same procedure for the Top Blueprint image on the Top Plane For the Back you will want to create an offset plane based on the Front Plane This isn’t really necessary but I like to keep the back image at the back of the car

Notice my feature tree I’ve added a Back Plane for the back blueprint image I’ve also added a folder called Blueprints and all of my named blueprint sketches are within this folder

In the feature tree you will notice between the Sketch icon and the sketch name the (-) This means the sketch is under defined Unfortunately there is no way that I know of to define the sketch, but you can only move/scale the sketch when in the Sketch Picture dialog I do not worry about these being under-defined Also throughout the model I do not worry about fully defining my curves It’s always a good idea to define your curves In the instance of this car I go back and make tweaks here and there so I leave them under defined This will come back to bite you so understand the risk you are taking by not defining things fully

Now that your feature tree is cleaned up and you have your 4 sketch images laid out take a step back and think about the model a bit If you are entering into a model like this for the first time it’s important

to know that you will go through several changes and revisions Sometimes you can get things to work right the first time, but not always Every model will have its own challenges so be prepared to save your work and save a copy, then delete and work back from an earlier point Don’t be afraid to cut your losses because you will spend way more time trying to fix a model than if you just start over The worst thing you can do is try to fix something later and ruin the model because the updates aren’t working Everyone who deals with complex surfacing will tell you the same thing Play around with lines and the tools you have available to you before you dive into the actual model Since this tutorial assumes you have prior working knowledge of SolidWorks and its complex surfacing tools I will just dive right in Some more warning, I promise we will get to the actual model soon The quality of your surface is only

as good as the curves that define it If your curves have lots of inflection points, so will your surfaces Always start your splines with only the end points and control them using the handles or polygon

methods If you can’t get your shape with only the end handles add spline points 1 at a time The fewer the better, always!

Since the Camaro is a new car you have the benefit of using the manufacturer’s website If you go to

www.chevy.com you can “build your own” Camaro Inside here you can rotate the car 360degrees This

is a valuable asset when trying to figure out body lines and I recommend you do this when possible When you plan out the approach to modeling this car you need to look at the hard lines of the body and find good places to break up your surfaces The door and front fender keep the same bodylines but the rear fender flares out So at a first glance I want to model the door and front fender first Sometimes it’s best to start with the roofline or the glass but I think the side of the body will give the most trouble

so I want to tackle it first Start a new sketch on the Right Plane and we are going to layout the top ridge

of the fender/door Start by drawing a spline from the front edge of the fender to the back edge of the door like below

Now use the spline handles to control the curve and match the shape of the body I ended up with my handles like this

Keep in mind when making these splines that the body lines on other parts like the front nose cone will end up with a tangent relation Make sure your handles are reasonable in their direction to account for this End the sketch and start a new sketch on the Top Plane We want to draw the same body line we just did, only from the Top View In some cases (such as this) I like to use Convert Entities on that first sketch onto the top plane and make it a construction line The reason I do this is so I can add a

horizontal relation It helps me early on in the model to know my blueprints are in a reasonable spot and that my project curves will hit where I want them to Again you only want to draw the start and end

of your spline Make them horizontal from the endpoints of your converted construction line and make sure they hit the same spot on the blueprint image as our original sketch

More important than exactly matching the line on the blueprint is ensuring that you have a nice stable spline The blueprint images are pixilated and not exact in most cases Use your judgment to know when a deviation from the blueprint is warranted So far we can hit these curves by only using the endpoint handles You will find this to be the case for most things If you end up with 4 or more spline points you may want to take a step back and see if there is another way to approach the model

Now with our first two sketches we can make our first projected curve This is the procedure that we will follow for the entire model with slight variations of course Most notably will be how and where we add relations and what type of surfaces we will be creating with these curves

I have added the Curves button to my quick menu(S key on the keyboard) I find with models like that that I use it enough to warrant putting it there You can find it on your Features tab or Surfaces tab under Curves

It’s important to note the two differences in projection types for Projected Curves

Sketch on Sketch will allow you to take two 2d sketches and create a 3d curve where they meet Sketch

on face will be used later possibly for things like sweep paths for window seals This allows you to take a single 2d sketch and project it onto a 3d surface Make sure you use Sketch on Sketch for now until otherwise noted

Select both sketches and create your first bodyline Now for some reason these projected curves often aren’t visible when a sketch blueprint is there so you may need to rotate the model or hide some of the blueprint sketches to see this curve If you select the curve in the window or in the feature tree it should be easier to see Also take this opportunity to rename Curve1 to something meaningful and notice that both 2d sketches are consumed by the Curve1 feature because they are children to it Once

we use this curve along with others to create a surface this will happen again I named mine Fender Door Ridge

From here on out I will give you very general guidelines to help, but the point is to learn and not

regurgitate I won’t be telling you to OK the sketch, it’s just implied If I use something new I will point it out but the procedure is the same from here on out for the majority of the body The next curve will be the front edge of the fender In a new sketch on the Right Plane I draw a vertical line I select the end point of the line and the 3d curve from the previous step and add a coincident constraint Here it’s important to note the pierce constraint An example of the pierce constraint would be drawing a 2d sketch where a 3d curve will intersect this sketch at some point Pierce will make your sketch intersect this 3d curve In this case our 2d sketch is on the Right plane while our curve never intersects this plane,

so coincident must be used Also you may notice if you select the endpoint of your 3d curve that you have no relation options This is because the endpoint doesn’t lie on the plane However if you select the entire curve it will be “projected” but not actually drawn in your sketch Make sure after you apply the coincident relation that you try to move your line all the way to the end of your curve If you are not

at the endpoint it will cause issues with your surfaces so this is important Another thing you could do is use Convert Entities on your 3d curve or you can go back to the 2d curve on the right plane This is possibly a more stable method because it allows you to pick an end point This way if you go back and edit curves they will more than likely update better I will let you make the call on how you do this because part of learning is finding out what works and what doesn’t It’s a good idea to create a new part and play around with these projected curves and watch what happens when you make changes

The second 2d sketch this time is on the front plane and not in the top plane The reason for this is simply the direction of curvature of the model If you look at this from the top it would be a straight line and you would not accurately mimic the curve It will be up to you to decide which views to sketch in and it will take a bit of practice to pick up on this Be prepared to do it wrong several times Some compound curves may also require you to try a few different methods There is nothing wrong with trial and error, so don’t get frustrated if you have to get it wrong a few times

The first thing I do is create a 2point spline Before I mess with the handles I apply a coincident relation between the endpoint of the spline and the 3d curve (either by selecting the curve and converting, then using it as a construction line, or simply applying it to the curve Remember it’s up to you to find out which works best Making sure that both 2d sketches intersect the 3d curve at the same point will ensure your Projected Curve will be in the right spot Go ahead and adjust the curvature to match the blueprint

At this point you may be wondering “why aren’t we just using 3d sketches for this?” Well 3d sketches are very hard to control and your model will show this Using 2d sketches and projecting the curves will

be a much more stable method for you to model something like this The end result will but much nicer

as well

The next curve will be the back edge of the door This is a tough curve because you can’t see it from the front view which is where the curve is most important Start with the side view

Again, and I won’t always mention this; apply that coincident relation with the 3d curve so you know the end point is coincident When you try to drag the spline to the end of your 3d curve the little coincident icon will appear, but if you don’t convert the line, updates later may cause you problems, hint hint

For the second sketch I’m going to give the top view a shot since there is some curvature in this view

We will not be able to do this for the part of the door below centerline because it is hidden in the top view, but for this edge it should work just fine

Select the 3d curve you create from these two and have a look at it compared to the blueprint You may notice a problem It looks great in my top view but in the side view it doesn’t meet the bodyline where I wanted This isn’t good so we need to think on it a bit

Okay so it’s time to make use of rolling back the feature tree Below the bottom feature in your tree is a dark blue bar, you can grab that and drag it up the tree Drag that blue line above the last 3d curve we just created

Next we complete the 4th 3d curve which will be done from the side and top views Don’t worry about the wheel arc just yet as we will trim the surface for that If you try to create the surface with the arc already cut then it will produce some unwanted geometry We are going to make this curve before the back edge of the door in our feature tree This will let us go back and edit that back edge to meet the bodylines properly or maybe create a new 2d sketch on the front plane Only time will tell

For the front edge of the fender go ahead and use Convert Entities and make it a construction line Then apply a coincident constraint between a spline and its end point At a first glance you may think this bodyline is straight but once you draw your spline you will have to edit the handles a little bit to match

it When you are drawing your top view curve don’t worry about the wheel arch Try to get the

underlying geometry to line up

Pay attention to the curves on the blue print, especially the nose cone lines

After you make this 3d curve (and name it), roll the end of part past the door back edge curve you created Now notice how short it is of our body midline So it looks like the top view we used for it just isn’t going to work What I did was delete the 3d curve for the back door edge and moved the sketches

to the end I also deleted my top view sketch that was used for the back edge of the door

What we need to do is create a front view sketch that meets both our 3d curves and is as close to the body shape as we can make My spline starts out like this with my relations added

We know from looking at pictures and rotating the “build your own” model on the Chevy site that this door line appears to be close to the same arc as the front edge of the fender Keep in mind you do not want your lower spline handle to be vertical; we still need a crisp body line Once we make the surface (and the bottom part of the door) we can edit this spline if we feel it doesn’t look right

To make this projected sketch work out we need to go back in and edit our side view sketch to make sure that it is coincident with our door midline 3d curve Then our new projected curve should look good

This is a very important part of the model, the first surface This surface can be Lofted, Boundary or filled And although it might seem like they would all be the same, each one may produce a different result We don’t have any other surfaces so we aren’t worried about constraints with surrounding surfaces, but make use of the zebra striped previews in each surface to see any differences

Lofted, make note of the green handles on the loft profiles You can manually move these from one side

to the other Each profile needs to have these on the same edge or the loft will try to twist

Boundary surface

And the big difference, Filled Surface

If you rotate a filled surface around you will notice it will not work The issue is that all 4 edges are curved in several directions It makes it hard for filled surface to work This would work well if we had a surface that we needed to trim and fill Without the use of surrounding surfaces to apply tangent or curvature relations, filled surface is very unstable For this surface I chose a Boundary Surface Loft and Boundary surfaces will be nearly identical in this instance The benefit comes in the needed curves to create the surface Loft needs a start and end profile Boundary can be created with two curves; one could be a guide similar to a sweep only your profile doesn’t need to be 2d

Because the bottom half of the front fender shape is a little different than the door, we are going to go ahead and cut the wheel arch from the surface we just made so we can start filling it some more panels When you draw the sketch to cutout the arch draw it large enough so we can also use it to cut the lower part of the fender later There is no point to make the same sketch twice so we want to ensure we have enough to use later Unfortunately it’s not a simple arc, but a spline can fit this shape by just using its end handles

A common mistake here would be to use multiple points to make the arc but this will yield bad results in your surfaces Use the Trim Surface command to trim away the wheel arch from our surface Also as another note, if your surface has blue edges like mine below, this means your 3d curves are visible You want to be very careful when making surfaces that you select the edge of the surface and not the 3d curve The 3d curve will not allow you to make use of tangent or curvature face constraints

Another warning for you It’s much better to draw hard corners and come back to fillet them later rather than trying to model the filleted corner This is why we are going to leave hard body lines and smooth them out later

Since we are going to model the rest of the door and the front fender in pieces, there is no point to having this a single surface (visually) so we can use the split tool Create a 2d sketch for the door seam and use Split Line on the Curves drop down

Looking at the model I’ve decide to take care of the upper half of the rear fender to ensure we have good bodylines to work off for the lower half Even though it’s good to setup a plan of attack, if part way through you see a better way to approach the model don’t be afraid to take it Save often and save copies if you want to try and model from different perspectives

I start by modeling the upper edge just as we did for the first surface I make sure it’s coincident with the surface and tangent with the top edge of the surface In order to follow the bodyline I have to make the handle really small (reducing its weight)

Next is the Top down sketch This is one of those rare splines that needed a 3rd point This is because the rear had a hard edge I came close to getting it without the extra point but it was not a stable spline Again the spline is coincident with the edge of the surface and tangent with the top edge

Here is a front view of the surface and this new 3d curve

The procedure for the rear is similar to the front We won’t worry about the wheel cut out and also we are going to model more in the back and cut away for the tail light Your surfaces will be higher quality if you can avoid surfacing in small areas on big panels like this

Here you can see how far I went past the bodyline This is roughly where I think the back edge will continue to (will be clear in a moment)

Again on the top view carry the body line past the back

Now we don’t need to fill in the back of this because we will use a boundary surface Using the edge of the door surface as Directioin1 and the two 3d curves as Direction2 this should give us a nice rear fender surface Under Dir1 you want to apply a tangency to face condition from the drop down box We may need to go back and tweak the sketches a bit if we don’t like how the rear turned out but we will cut out the wheel arch and tail light area first

Even though the rear wheel arch is only cut on the top (and not near the door), draw a larger section of the arc

Trim the surface, then go and draw a sketch to show the rear tail light area This was a combination of some straight lines with fillets and a spline The reason I filleted the cutout is because we don’t want a hard edge for the cutout here We are going to use this edge for the rear bumper and the sharp corner would produce a bad surface

So here is where we are now There is a problem that needs to be handled and it’s a result of the boundary patch

It’s better to catch this now Roll the end of part up above the two trim operations so we can deal with this surface Looking at the surface, the problem is my Top Down view of the lower edge of the surface

didn’t go back far enough Now when you project curves, some of the curve may not project if they aren’t the same length You can see from the image below, my top down sketch doesn’t extend nearly

as far back as my Side view sketch

My solution could either be to make sure it hits at the same point or extend it farther I just extended it farther making sure the bodylines are kept

Once you exit the sketch, your 3d curve should update as well as the surface created from it

It’s pretty close but still not perfect so a little more tweaking will help I’m going to tweak the side curve for the lower edge a bit farther back so our angle is better

This could have been handled by making a curve for the back edge, but because I wanted the front edge (door) to drive the shape of the fender, I didn’t want any influence on the back corner You can play around with these curves until you like the shape of the back corner When you have it looking good, roll the end of part down below the two trim operations

I want to take this point to stop and show a view of the Feature Tree

Everything is named something that will help me identify the operation I didn’t name every sketch, but

I labeled all the curves and features You may also notice that the Surface Bodies folder says (2) Even though we split the door seam on the first surface, it is still a single surface Later when we actually cut

a space for the door gap we will make these different surfaces but for now, the split was simply for reference

Now on to the rest of the door

Now here is where a little bit of educated guessing comes in We can’t see this edge from the top view

or the front view We will have to use the shape of the body and pictures to come up with this edge In the front view I Convert Entities of the side view spline so I have the point at which it ends on the

bottom (make it a construction line) Then I apply a horizontal relation between that and my spline

Of course the other end is coincident with the edge on the door we are dealing with You will have to do your best to get the shape but this may require us to come back and tweak it a bit if needed

Do the same thing with the back edge of the door

I did the same thing in the front view with the horizontal relation

Also in light blue you can see the 3d curve created for the front of the door

For the lower edge we know that the fender flares out and that its tangent with this door seam so I made the handle at this point with not much weight I know that I will need to make my curve for the rear fender tangent to this 3d curve so I’m planning ahead

Now since we have the front and back edge of the door in 3d, we can make a top down view for the other part of this 3d projected curve This allows us to look at the body from the top down and pickup

on any design cues I’ve decided to give this a little curve towards the rear of the door from looking at pictures of the car

I’ve decided again to use a boundary surface Be sure that you use the edge of the existing surface and not your 3d curve In the Direction box it will say Edge and not the name of a 3d curve

Before we get too far on the door we should fill in some more of the fenders It’s important not to spend too much time getting into details just yet because some of the surfaces may need to be tweaked Details like the fender flares will be important for how the fenders transition into the door and since the rocker panel is flush with the fender we need to be sure of all the major lines

The actual fender opening wasn’t a perfect arc again so I used a spline I added a vertical relation to both spline handles and then just pulled their “weights” until it lined up I went ahead and offset this spline but made it a construction Later we will convert that into another sketch and use it It doesn’t perfectly line up on the back edge but I’d rather have a perfect offset than to pull that back edge in

For the front I just made a large spline that followed the bodyline

Remember that some of this will get trimmed when we project the two sketches together

In a new Right Plane sketch I convert the offset spline then make a projected curve from that and the same Front Plane spline used for the last projected curve The result is two 3d curves that are “in plane” with each other

I can then use both curves for a boundary surface

Next I start to fill in the section of the fender between the door and the wheel flare The one difference here is I make the sketch used to trim the fender visible and add a coincident relation between it and my spline, but not at its endpoint since it doesn’t hit the body lines where we want